Google Introduces Phone With 3-D Sensors

Makes real-time, 3D maps of its environment

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Google has unveiled a new phone that makes real-time, 3-D maps of its environments. Its “customized hardware and software” includes sensors that gives it the capability to make over a quarter of a million measurements every second. Its uses could include indoor mapping and navigation assistance for the visually-impaired.

“We are physical beings that live in a 3-D world,” Google says. “Yet, our mobile devices assume that physical world ends at the boundaries of the screen.”

A prototype of the device, developed by Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects unit under a venture called Project Tango, is being offered to 200 developers interested in making apps for the phone.